A Storm of Cleansing
By Ayamari no Goshi
Inspired by Dragonball/z
Written by Akira Toriyama
((he owns it, I do not))

Just to point out, this was an unexpected one shot. It was around 4am on July 23 when I came up with the idea for this particular work. It was storming like there was a hurricane (which is unusual for my area), and I was not feeling very well at the time. I rolled over in my bed, thought of something comforting, and then the first lines of this work filled my mind.

This is the finished product. I am a little unsure of it, especially because it is written in third person, a POV with which I have difficulty, and that it meshes aspects of the movie and the manga chapter on which it's based together. It was also sudden and rather unexpected, but I hope that you enjoy it. So, please, read and review.

The sky over the city was darkening. A storm was coming. As the lightning began its dance to the soundtrack of the thunder, the inhabitants began to disappear one by one into the numerous buildings. Even the vehicles, that seemed to have a never-ending supply, slowly began to decrease in number.

A young man grew restless as he watched the scene from the safety of his living room. He hated storms and scenes they created. Those scenes were almost always the same; a city devoid of life, set against the relief of the dark sky. They reminded him of the nightmare that had haunted him for most of his life.

Even though he had finally woken from that nightmare, any similarity to what he had seen tended to cause the painful memories of that time to resurface. Each time it happened, the memories struck at him so powerfully that they sent him back to the scene.

As drops of rain began to fall on the city, he sighed and ran his hand through his hair. It had been about nine years (1) since he had first gotten personally involved in that nightmare. Prior to that time, he was just living with it, like most of the other people. There was nothing that could be done, so, like most of the others, he focused on surviving.

He did often dream of a better world, a world without the nightmare, but whenever he would speak of it, those around him would often shake their head or turn away. They had lost hope of escaping, since every other attempt had failed.

Even the only chance the world had against that nightmare had fallen when he was just a baby. That chance had rested in the hands of group of warriors, of which his father had been a part. They had trained themselves to go beyond what was thought possible, making them more like legends than actual people. Up until that point, whatever challenge that came their way was conquered.

That changed when one of the most liked and powerful members passed away from a new illness. His presence created cohesion as well as the notion that everything was possible. The nightmare began soon afterwards, and without him being that central force, morality dropped as the deaths began. Soon, only one member of that group was left.

It was that surviving member of that group who had given the young man a chance to fight against that nightmare. He was eight years older than the young man, and was almost everything that he had wanted to be. He was caring, good natured, powerful, brave, and at the time, the only person who was actively fighting back against the nightmare.

Being a close member of the family, that survivor knew the young man since before he could speak. After much convincing, the survivor began to teach him the arts that could be used to liberate the world. Although he took his training seriously, the young man enjoyed the time spent with the survivor. He was almost like an older brother to him, which was the first time that he had such a figure in his life.

The rain grew heavier. Any outdoor place that somehow escaped the initial dampening was mostly likely soaked now. The young man once again sighed. It was a similar storm that had marked the end of that time.

Right around the time he had become fully active in fighting against the nightmare, his teacher had decided to go into battle alone, knocking him out in the process. Just prior to being embraced in the darkness, the young man had tried to persuade him to not go into that battle alone. He had just lost an arm in another such battle, and the young man was worried that it would cause him to lose his life this time.

When the young man awoke, he learned that he was alone. Worried about his teacher, he immediately headed to the scene of the battle, just as a storm began. When he finally found his teacher's dead and broken body, the storm was at its full force, making it the perfect backdrop to the feelings of rage and sadness swirling within him.

After that time, the young man was alone in the fight. During each battle he entered, he ran the risk of not returning. Each time he fought, it got a little more difficult to escape as the nightmare showed a little more of its strength and his faith continued to decay.

Salvation began on the day he was able to relive the past. Thanks to the genius of his mother, he was able to travel to the past and warn the members of that group of warriors what their future would bring. Then, he was able fight alongside of them and gain the needed strength to finally free his time from the nightmare.

He viewed that victory as bitter-sweet.

So many had been lost during the nightmare. They were nothing more than innocent victims of two malicious minds. The victims' lives were only remembered by the limited number of survivors and the blood stains they had left when they were killed. Those stains that still remained reminded those who lived the nightmare of what was lost and those who came later of what had happened.

Unfortunately, those reminders were becoming less frequent. Reconstruction attempts removed some of the stains in order to recreate what had been lost. Also, natural events, such as the rain storm, further removed those stains.

It was maddening to the young man. The proof that those people had lived and died were now being destroyed by the rain. They deserved to be remembered, but the water cleared away that memory, even those that were more set-in! It cleansed those areas so well that those who approached them would never know what had happened there in the past.

Yet, at the same time, it was needed. Those stains were everywhere, and some did need to be cleaned away before progress could be made towards the future.

The young man then noticed that the rain was beginning to lighten. After grabbing his jacket, he decided to go outside and talk a walk.

"Trunks? Where are you going?" his mother asked as he passed her in the hall.

"I'm going to take a walk."

She was rather puzzled by his answer. "Why? It's raining?"

He smiled gently as he answered: "I know."

As he exited the house and felt the cool drops of rain fall upon his face, he calmed down a little. Rain was a natural cleanser. It removed the dirt, grime, and stains of the past so that new growth can occur. He had been so caught up in the past that he had forgotten that he now had a future, which could only be attained by allowing himself to let go of the past.

As he began to walk forward, he noticed that some of the other residents of the city were beginning to reemerge from the buildings. He smiled as he passed them; maybe he didn't hate the rain after all.

1 This story takes place shortly after Trunks had defeated Cell in his time. This actually happens three years after he finally defeated the androids (many people miss this). It's suggested by both the anime and manga (yes, History of Trunks is a manga chapter) that Trunks first got involved in the fighting shortly before/after Gohan died, so this is where the nine years arises.